An Excerpt from Toss Another Flower in the Urinal
The year was 1969. I had been hired to initiate an art course at an all-male high school, De La Salle, on St. Charles Avenue in tradition-saturated New Orleans. My decision to accept the job meant that I would break down the gender barrier as the first female teacher among 63 male faculty and 1,200 students, all boys—including my own. Not that I was intimidated by men. I loved men. I understood men. I was living with five of them: a husband, George, who was recuperating from a heart attack, and four boys—three of them teenagers and a 10-year-old. Guy odors of sweaty socks, moldy tennis shoes, rancid French fries mashed into dirty jeans, and a few unmentionable smells permeated my existence. I was so acclimated to the male habitat that I found myself raising the toilet seat after each use.
No, my apprehension was not triggered by the thought of multiples of men; it was aggravated because I was concerned about the potential for personal obstacles.
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January in New Orleans always ushered in the Mardi Gras season with Twelfth Night Revelers. In 1969, January also ushered in the first and most severe of my husband’s series of heart attacks. It wasn’t the clichéd dark and stormy night, but it was raining hard the night I forced George into the passenger seat of his Chevy Impala and drove him to Hotel Dieu hospital. He was protesting my intervention all the way, bracing himself against the dashboard with one hand while clutching his chest with the other. He released a grunt in rhythm with each swipe of the windshield wipers, which gave me some degree of comfort. It meant he was still breathing.
When we arrived at the drive-through emergency access, George brushed aside the offer of a wheelchair and walked in, refusing any help. I parked the car, popped open my umbrella and splashed through puddles to the hospital entrance. In that short time my husband’s heart had stopped beating. When I entered the hallway, nurses and doctors were rushing in and out of his room followed by technicians pushing ominous looking machines on casters. Each time the nurse walked by she would assure me everything was under control, but it was important for me to remain in the waiting area so as not to be in their way.
How could I have been in the way? I felt as though I had melted and disappeared into the smooth plaster of the walls. I stumbled with liquid legs over to a window and looked out into the darkness, then placed my forehead tight against the cold glass, closed my eyes and felt the pound of steady raindrops on the pane against my face. I began to mumble a mantra only God could understand.
Then I heard someone call my name. “Your husband’s going to be okay,” she said. “Don’t worry. He’s fine.” Yes, they brought him back, but don’t worry? She was talking to the wrong woman….
~
(You may read the last half of this story in my Women and Pedagogy book!)
ready for reality.” William F. Pinar
Professor, University of British Columbia